


The song of early spring

by jappelle_la_police



Category: Formula E RPF, Motorsport RPF
Genre: M/M, Photographer AU, i had to post this or it would've died a bad death, please god let me live, potentially while also high i don't make the rules, that's really a big old hodge-podge art school au in disguise, there will be group hugging, those of you who know I am, vaguely pervy andre
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 05:52:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17616728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jappelle_la_police/pseuds/jappelle_la_police
Summary: “Are you always this combative with your models?” Jean-Éric can’t help but asking, even as he thrusts the sweatshirt at a hapless PA who looks like she’d rather be anywhere else but the line of fire between the two men.“Only the ones who bite back,” Dré replies, in French, and Jean-Éric knows his accent isn’t exactly subtle but between the language shift and his tone, there’s something that scratch, scratch,scratchesagainst him again just making this whole thing three times worse.--Jev is a dancer who models to get by; he's at the end of his rope with it, but a photoshoot with an overqualified artist sparks something in him that serendipitously coincides with his best friend from conservatory asking him for a bit of a favor.





	1. Spring is like a perhaps hand

**Author's Note:**

> wow this is a holy fucking mess, let me tell you what. This is distinctly a particular individual's fault, but they shouldn't be held culpable for where this wound up going. A lot of this, midway through as we are, I can safely say is in fact me using this to therapy out my art school college disaster history.
> 
> Housekeeping: there are content warnings at the end, but be aware the rating and parings will shift as life continues onwards. I will update this roughly every week, to week and a half? It is a wip! but fear not, there are three chapters' worth that presently exist. The quality of this will not get better, I'm sorry? kind of? look, if I stopped to panic over how frankly terrible I'm worried this really is, it would never get posted, and I can assure you it would have zero chance of ever being finished. This is the nuclear option.
> 
> For the tiny handful of you that cross over into hockey RPF who are going "wait but isn't this plot strikingly similar to a Ferratin fic --" yeah yeah they say imitation is flattery or something, yes, I know, and yes, it's inspired by that fic; I'm borrowing enough I feel obligated to say something.
> 
> LAST BUT NOT LEAST yo if you're here because you googled yourself or someone you know, please just close the browser window, you'll be doing yourself a favor.

Jean-Éric generally hates fashion shoots for anything more pretentious than _Esquire_ because the photographers tend to be the type who consider themselves artists despite making the kind of comfortable bank he’s resigned himself to as well since he left art school, and their ideas for making clothing look good tend to range from extremely tedious to uncomfortably absurd. This shoot today is no exception -- Jev has worked with some seriously difficult photographers in his time, but this guy is something else.

He bites his lip, keeping his face in a practiced loose half-smile he knows shouldn’t give away how frustrated he’s becoming; no good to get a unanimous reputation as bitchy talent, and his is a bit sticky in some circles already much to his eternal consternation. Some days he really does oscillate between missing the genuine freedom of expression that was encouraged in school and not pursuing dance more seriously so he wouldn’t have to be doing this at all, but today he’s fully prepared to smash his fists through the dressing room mirror if it meant he’d never have to stand in front of a camera ever again. He’s not sure when he got this agitated, although losing the management contract with Franz has had him off all month, but the way this photographer is looking at him is catching at shards of irritability he usually does better to keep out of sight while working.

“Take off the sweatshirt,” the photographer says, lowering his Leica minute.

It doesn’t help the guy’s very good-looking, Jev’s a little loathe to admit; salt and pepper hair, ridiculously piercing blue eyes, and even if his ears stick out a bit, even if he’s button-nosed instead of something more typically appealing, it comes together to generate seriously roguish affect that’s likely let him get away with being an asshole far longer than most human beings.

“Did you hear me?” the man asks Jev, a slight quirk to the side of the mouth that doesn’t quite turn into a smirk.

And no, fuck; Jev’s been staring blankly at him instead of doing his job. He blinks, wrinkles his nose, figures any flush showing through the pancake on his face can be written off as the heat from the lights.

“Sorry no,” he says, looking at his shoes instead.

“The sweatshirt, put it back on,” comes the reply.

Jev rolls his eyes, but does as requested. The sweatshirt is fucking awful; it’s some wool blend and feels terrible against the naked skin of his chest, the geometric vinyl cut-outs sewn on the front no better in all honesty -- the clothes being more form than function isn’t really surprising for a _Hercules_ concept shoot, even if he’s not entirely sure if he’s being contrasted against the materials of the two parked cars in this warehouse-sized London studio or if he’s meant to complement the weirdly human contours of the machined metal exteriors.

Jean-Éric barely has his head through the neck hole, hand running through his hair before the command comes: “Actually take it off again.”

He freezes, curling his hand into the strands tangled between his fingers, and darts a look up again at the photographer -- Dan? No it had been weird, probably short for something, like Xavi, or Manu; Dré? Maybe, Jev’s usually better with names than this, shit -- and clenches his jaw, waiting to see if the other man is fucking with him.

He’s met with an expectant and slightly impatient look, so Jev peels the thing off himself again and deposits it haphazardly on to the floor, not much caring now if it seems petulant or a bit pissy. They’ve been at this since 5am and this guy’s maybe taken fifteen pictures, tops.

“Back on please,” and Jev can hear the smile even if Dré’s able to somehow keep it off his face.

“You know,” Jean-Éric says, finally, cracking a bit as he bends to pick-up the abused piece of clothing from the floor. “Far be it from me to question your artistic process --”

“Mmm-hmm,” Dré intones, fiddling with the display on his camera.

“-- but don’t photoshoots generally require you to,” Jev licks his lips, before shrugging, and leveling Dré with as scornful a stare as he can manage within the realm of his rapidly withering professionalism. “Shoot photographs?”

“With you looking like you just ate an entire basket of lemons? I’d be better off just editing what I already have,” Dré replies cheerfully as he meets Jev’s gaze.

Jev smiles, trying not to channel the murderous thoughts he’s starting to have into the expression but fails if the mild horror creeping onto Dré’s face is anything to go by.

“That’s worse, god please stop,” he says, pausing what he’s doing with the camera reel until Jev’s dropped his face into something more neutral. “It’ll be fine, honestly; I can make the entire thing workably abstract, nobody buys a £1,500 sweatshirt based off fashion photos anyway --”

“This is £1,500?” Jev sputters, staring down incredulously at the off-white monstrosity covering his arms and bunched at the start of his torso. “It’s so _uncomfortable_ \--”

“Money can’t buy taste,” Dré shrugs, the dulled flash lamps stuttering to life as he snaps a few pictures of Jev entirely flabbergasted. “Grab the clear jacket with the chrome triangles on it and get on the hood of the Lamborghini, we still have four other pieces I somehow have to make look good using you, and you’re not really making this easy on me.”

“Are you always this combative with your models?” Jean-Éric can’t help but asking, even as he thrusts the sweatshirt at a hapless PA who looks like she’d rather be anywhere else but the line of fire between the two men.

“Only the ones who bite back,” Dré replies, in French, and Jean-Éric knows his accent isn’t exactly subtle but between the language shift and his tone, there’s something that scratch, scratch, _scratches_ against him again, and he’s not sure it’s as simple as dislike, anymore, but that uncertainty just makes this whole thing three times worse.

By the time Jev gets the plastic jacket in-hand and stalks over to the hood of the unadorned carbon-fiber Centenario, he feels slightly more in control of his temper, turns to look cooly at Dré who’s followed him over, palming his camera and trailing cables behind him. Jev drops his gaze to look at where Dré is running the thumb of his free hand back and forth over the seam of his lips, eyes drawn to the movement, and he snarls at himself internally, even as he drags his gaze back up, tilting his chin up slightly.

“How do you want me?” Jev asks, after a few seconds of Dré’s eyes skittering over his form at the car under him, anxious for the distraction of direction.

“Knees spread, head down, run your hands back through your hair and push your elbows back like wings -- yeah, OK, that’s. Stay like that a minute,” Dré confirms, looking at Jev through the lens of the car and safely a layer removed once more and starts taking pictures.

\--

It’s about a week to the day since the forgettable _Hercules_ shoot, and Jev’s stumbling home more than a little hung-over from Blake’s after a company wrap-party that ran way too long the night before (or really, the morning earlier); it had been her directorial debut, a three-week run as part of a festival for artsdepot and supposedly the programming director at Sadler’s Wells had audienced it and is now interested in picking it up for a longer stay if they manage to choreograph a second act. Which would be fucking _incredible_ for the company as a whole, but Blake especially Jean-Éric supposes, seeing as she’s been trying have people take her seriously as a dance director since she graduated RADA three years ago. The whole of the Electric/Formula troupe, himself included, had been in rare form as a result, not least because their last showing yesterday night had been a full-house with ovation.

All of which is to say, he trips over the mail package slid under his door when he opens it to reenter his flat and almost smashes his head against the sharp corner of his kitchen counter. Jev’s momentarily extremely bewildered before he remembers that yes, he is due a fucking paycheck from a shoot, and that’ll be his advance copy of the miserable magazine to add insult to near-injury.

He picks up the brown pack envelope and fiddles the clasp of it open, removing the smaller envelope inside with his check from the shoot, making sure he’s being invoiced appropriately, something he needs to get back into the habit of doing until (if, the shit part of his brain butts in to remind him, if) he finds new management again -- and thank goodness it’s all there plus the overtime. He dumps the magazine out onto the marble work surface and stares at it a minute, trying to remember where he’s put his magazine trunk since the move back to Islington. The cover of the magazine is him, in black and white -- although you wouldn’t necessarily know it at first look because it’s abstract and about the play of chiaroscuro between his body and the car under it: he’s in lightly patterned dark denim with his back to the camera and face turned in profile, barefoot on top of the McLaren BP23 with spotted livery, and the shadow keeps the muscles of his waist and back in silhouette, while spots of light pattern over his jaw and eye. It suggests something alive, between the lines of his back that are a flat, all-consuming black and the curve of the paneling on the car, a strange sense of imploring demand in the capture of his face that’s transmuted by the potential energy of a supercar at rest.

Considering how terribly the whole thing seems to have gone, at least according to his memory, it’s a good enough picture to cause Jev to frown, collect himself a glass of water and two paracetamol, and begin to leaf through to the full spread of the shoot.

Dré, as it turns out, is André Lotterer -- Börse and Hasselblad winner André Lotterer, that is -- and Jev takes a moment to marvel at how the man must really be slumming it if he’s being stuck doing fashion photography for magazines (even if it is something like _Hercules Universal_ which pretends to be more of an arts showcase lifestyle triptych), but eventually dismisses the meanness of the thought because fuck if they don’t all have to be making paychecks. The second thing that strikes him is that the shoot is fascinating and really, _really_ good. There’s a whole write-up between André and fashion designers Viktor & Rolf, who were apparently responsible for unbearable clothing, discussing the landscape of the human body and how it translates into the design and restrained potential motion of stationary sports cars, and it’s actually engrossing enough that Jev finds himself reading the whole thing before he’s realized entirely what he’s doing. There’s a four photo set of him including one where he’s staring at the sweater, startled into a sort of soft, docile expression, centered around a shot that’s eerily similar, arms extended and hands clutching at the posh leather of the steering wheel where he’s making an arguably identical expression as his face is pillowed by an inflated airbag.

Jean-Éric spends a long time staring at it, before he opts to carefully tear it out and pin it to the fridge door with a magnet. He then shuts the magazine without further inspection and adds it to the pile on his dining room table of shit he needs to find a better place for before wandering into his living room and flopping down on the wrap-around couch that dominates it.

It doesn’t take long before he drifts off to sleep again, despite the mid-morning sun filtering in through the balcony doors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Light bitchiness? And mentions of alcohol use. But this particular chapter doesn't have much to warn for.


	2. (which comes carefully

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings at the end ( and yes there are some for this chapter).

It’s Monday and raining, and Jev’s in the Starbucks around the corner from his flat when he gets the text from Sam, reading: _hey you have time to do a shoot next thurs/fri/sat in Manchester?it’s for an old friend who’s looking to do something on male eroticism and movement captured through still images for a lecture series he’s being asked to give as a result of some sort of posh gallery residency_

Jev snorts, and thumbs back _So it’s definitely not porn then?_

_have I *ever* asked you to do porn with me????_ comes the response seconds later, and Jev has to smile a little at how fond the indigence radiating from the text message makes him feel.

Sometimes he misses Sam like he imagines people miss a limb that’s been cut-off, you forget you don’t have it anymore but when you go to look for it, the ache that starts up at realizing it’s not a part of your life anymore becomes almost unbearable.

_Second year_ Jev responds smartly. _Student film project, the one with the weird leather square that we couldn’t figure out if was meant to be couch or a bed -- we were covered in red paint if I recall correct, no?_

The response is a little slower coming this time. _First of all, we didn’t fuck on camera, we fucked off camera, secondly we never took our knickers off which categorically means it cannot have been porn no matter how much paint were were covered in or how many errant erections were involved, thirdly you said you were too high to remember that shoot._

Jev might’ve said that, so he shrugs even though Sam isn’t there to see it. He slips his phone back into his pocket, scoops up his cappuccino, and braves the chill of late winter on his quick dash back to the comfort of his home turf. It only takes him a few minutes, so he doesn’t feel bad leaving Sam hanging for that long, but apparently the pause in flow is enough to have Sam calling his mobile even as Jev’s taking off his jacket in the entry-way.

“You’re a liar,” comes the lilt of Sam’s voice. “You swore up and down you were high for that--”

“I was,” Jev protests through a laugh. “I really was, I think Aleshin made some of his mother’s fucking tea that had so much mescalin in it, it’s a miracle I remembered I had limbs let alone skin for that whole entire day.”

“But you remember the shoot,” Sam hedges.

“Yeah,” Jev replies, hanging up his coat and toeing off his boots.“Yeah, I do.”

It had been some stupid color as metaphor idea, and the stick of a girl shooting the thing for her film course had kept insisting on free association with the different paints; they’d been blind-folded and covered in the stuff, the sticky chill each time causing him to shake with the heaviness of the sensation, and after the yellow had nearly sent him into some sort of bizarre anxiety spiral (probably not helped by the hallucinogenic tea he’d drank two hours earlier), it had been him and Sam, and Sam washing the paint off his body with a bucket and sponge, the weird squish and drag of the thing on his skin already enough to have him half-collapsed on Sam’s shoulder that by the time they were hand-painting each other with red acrylic, it was too easy to linger on the feel of Sam’s chest underneath his hands, the way his fingers slipped over Sam’s nipples, the tickle of hair against his forearm as swept the paint down Sam’s belly and over his thighs. Red was for blood, for passion, for heat, and a little out of his mind and a lot in deep sort of affection for his defacto best friend at that point, it was not exactly surprising that the whole thing had devolved into messy tongue kissing and rutting on some sincerely questionably-styled furniture.

It’s not like they fucked again after that, Jev remembers. They’d been handsy at parties after, sure, snogged on a couple of memorable occasions and had plenty of fun dancing, absolutely, but never anything as outright -- explicit. Intimate. High or otherwise. Jean-Éric is pretty sure that had been a result of neither of them wanting to upset the delicate balance of their deepening friendship; it hadn’t been because either of them had had an issue with it, or so Jev had thought -- although the weird tension in Sam’s voice now makes him question that long-held assumption.

“It’s not a problem for me though,” Jean-Éric continues after a few seconds of silence. “Is it a problem for you? Do you need me to talk about it with you?”

“No, not a problem,” Sam grumbles. “I just. Didn’t realize this whole time you remembered. I always felt a bit bad about it, you being proper caned during and all.”

“That’s hardly the worst thing I ever did high Sam,” Jev scoffs. “And you know that.”

“OK, fine,” Sam says, some the tension easing out of his voice. “It still doesn’t change that I was always a bit worried the whole thing was me taking advantage, like.”

“You didn’t take advantage of me,” Jev says, a chill running down his spine a bit at the thought that Sam might’ve carried guilt like that over something he’d written off as a wild, if awkward, college memory. “No more so than the half-dozen times we kissed when one or both of us was drunk at the clubs, it’s the same sort of thing.”

“Sure,” Sam replies, sounding calm if not entirely convinced.

Jean-Éric chews on his fingernail as he drifts towards the couches in his living room. There’s a rain that’s started to fall outside, and with the temperatures it might well turn into snow if it continues past nightfall. Sam’s still on the other end, the soft falls of static indicating he’s doing the same as Jev, just keeping the receiver to his ear and breathing into the silence between them.

“I’m sorry,” Jev decides to say; it seems important, now. “That’s on me, I thought it was maybe better to never bring it up again in case it wasn’t something you wanted to think about. So many guys in college, they do shit like that, pretend it was a dream or like it was something other than what it is, and it wasn’t worth --”

“Come off it,” Sam interrupts. “It’s fine. I could’ve made sure you were alright with it afterwards myself and never said anything either, it wasn’t just your fault.”

“But we’re OK?” Jean-Éric asks, knowing asking for the affirmation probably makes him sound needy, but Sam’s been in his life a long time -- that he gets that way about the people he cares for shouldn’t surprise him at this point.

“Of course we’re OK,” Sam says, and it’s clear and sure and uncomplicated, so Jean-Éric believes him.

“Seriously, it still kind of sounds like this photoshoot is porn though,” Jev says, sitting down while trying to stifle a giggle.

“I mean, would it shock me to find out André’s shot porn before? Not in the slightest. Do I think that’s what he’s asking me and the other model, potentially you, to do? Not really,” Sam says and Jev doesn’t really pay attention past Sam saying the name André.

“André,” Jean-Éric clarifies. “André Lotterer is your friend doing the residency?”

“You’ve heard of him?” Sam asks brightly. “Stupid arsehole went and got famous in the last five years -- to be clear, I use the term friend loosely since he’s a bit of a shithead, but I did class work under him and he’s bought me a beer or two in our time. I’ve done some joint projects with him since graduation, motion in line-art and photography, some mixed media stuff. Honestly haven’t let him shoot me since school.”

“I’ve worked with him before,” Jev sighs. “And shithead is right.”

“That would explain why he suggested you might be a good fit for the project --”

“He did what?” Jev asks, startled.

“Yeh, I showed him the head-shots of a handful of models I could personally recommend trying to convince him to pick two working models, but he insisted on me, and I thought he’d go for Dan honestly but apparently André doesn’t like working with talent that’s repped by Liberty as it turns out, says their models are too commercial whatever that fucking means,” Sam explains.

There’s an old, vaguely terrible pang that shoots through Jean-Éric’s chest at the mention of Dan, and the weird hesitation that Sam’s now hooked the conversation up on means he’s probably realized he’s brought up a touchy subject as well, however inadvertently.

“You still hung-up on Dan? I wasn’t trying to be cruel, sorry,” Sam does sound genuinely apologetic, and he’s many things but not cruel -- Jev knows.

“Nah,” Jev says with more confidence than he feels. “God no. Old news.”

“I wasn’t even going to show him yours, honestly, I know you’re trying to do more dance again, but he saw your old headshot and pulled it out, asked about you; the old sheet you have still lists you with Franz, with Liberty, I should’ve realized something was up when that didn’t set him off, the only way he’d know you were self-repped these days is if he’d shot with you recently,” Sam sighs.

“I’m surprised he asked for me,” Jean-Éric muses, thinking again of André’s sharp attention and bright eyes. “We didn’t exactly play well together.”

“Probably means he likes you,” Sam says, as if that’s any kind of reasonable conclusion. “He’s not all that nice to people he likes.”

“That’s kind of strange,” Jev says, leaning back enough so that he can see the fridge from where he’s sitting, the pictures André took he’d put up a week ago radiating some sort of silent accusation.

“So’s André,” Sam laughs, a bark of a thing. “Does that mean you’re in?”

“Sure,” Jean-Éric says, letting the word slide out of his mouth without really stopping to think about it. “Why not?”

“Excellent, I’ll set it up,” Sam replies, relief obvious in his tone. “Honestly happy you agreed, mate, I kind of miss mucking about with you, what with us both trying to be grown-ups these days.”

“I miss you too,” Jev says, smiling slightly, and doesn’t even mind that it’s true.

\--

Jean-Éric mostly puts the whole thing out of mind for the rest of the week, although he does purchase his train tickets, sets an alarm for two days before, and mentions it to Blake and Alejandro so that they know he can’t do any performances that weekend.

And it’s fine, really, he goes to afternoon rehearsals that week faithfully -- Blake dragging him and Alex and Loïc out for drinks with herself and Mitch after the last one that Saturday at the usual dive in Fitzrovia which is pretty much the neutral ground between all their respective flats.

“What’s wrong?” She winds up asking, both of them three vodka sodas deep and loose in a way Jev misses constantly when he’s not drunk enough to feel like this, her small body curled around him more snugly and more comfortably than any Moncler cardigan he owns.

“Nothing’s _wrong_ ,” he insists, and that’s true -- it’s that he feels nervous. “I’m just not sure what I’ve gotten myself into.”

That gets Blake to raise her head up from where it’s been perched on his shoulder, and she cocks her head to the side to look Jean-Éric in the eye properly.

“Are you really in trouble, or are you just having a crisis?” she asks, not unkindly.

“Crisis, definitely,” Jev clarifies, grinning.

He sometimes forgets how long Blake’s known him for, how much of the sincerely reprehensible tracts of his personal history she’s actually familiar with.

“You want to tell me or do you just want me to stroke your hair and promise you it’ll all work out in the end?” she asks, matching him smile for smile.

“Can you stroke my hair instead?” Loïc asks from where he’s a little too drunk and only half-listening mushed against Jev’s other side.

Jean-Éric slides his hand up Loïc’s thigh, patting him resolutely even as the touch makes Loïc nuzzle into the fleshy space along his neck just under his left ear. Not for the first time, Jev’s genuinely grateful for this, for his pack of people, and the comfort they seem so happy to casually dispense with genuine affection and zero expectations.

“Are you ever scared of letting someone seeing you, I mean -- like, the real you? The ugliest things, the best things, everything all at once?” Jev asks her, the English feeling a bit clumsy as it can after drink and letting a few seconds of music pass through them both, the bass reverberating through the wood and plastic backing of the bench they’re all crammed onto like sardines in a tin.

“I’m pretty sure we all are,” Blake says, winding fingers through the longer bits of hair along the sides of his head and tugging at them gently. “Who’s got you twisted up in knots?”

“I did a shoot, and --” Jev’s not entirely sure how to explain what he’s feeling, not about Sam, not about André. “I think I gave too much away.”

Blake did some acting, Jean-Éric remembers, so as incomprehensible as that statement feels, he trusts that she’ll at least sort of get what he’s trying communicate in a thoroughly inelegant fashion. The way she hums and switches to stroking her thumb along his hairline soothes him either way.

“You have to work with the director, or the photographer again?”

“He _asked_ to work with me again, I don’t --” Jev blurts out, frustrated at how the words tangle in his mouth. “I think it’s that I don’t know what he wants from me, and that should be scary; it’s actually not, though, it’s --”

“Exciting?” Blake offers when the silence Jean-Éric falls into drags on a bit too long, and he looks at her again and examines the patient sort of smile on her face -- less gently mocking, more like she’s been in Jev’s shoes before.

“Sort of,” Jev half-laughs. “It’s like I keep hoping he’ll push me to do things in ways I wouldn’t want to take the responsibility for trying to do myself, not on my own.”

Certainly not with Sam, who he’s known too long in one particular way to try and change whatever affection exists between them.

“Is that so shocking, though?” Blake asks, while reaching down to squeeze Jev’s wrist, trailing her fingers up to lace them through the gaps between his own.

“You’ve always liked it when people were bold enough to hold your hand,” Loïc chimes in suddenly, grasping Jev’s other hand, twinning Blake’s touch.

Jean-Éric hadn’t even realized he was still tracking the conversation. Loïc can be a little sneaky like that, content to stand by until you least expect him to offer some sort of insight. He’s trying to work out what he wants to say to either of them when Alex and Mitch, tangled up in each other, stumble back over to the table with two shots a piece of something milky and green.

“The bartender called these Scooby Snacks,” Mitch snorts, slurring more than just slightly. “I know that sounds horrid and they're an unnatural shade of green but they actually taste nice, a bit like summer on the beach.”

“Please drink yours, or else he’ll drink the extras and I don’t have the patience for that kind of mess at home tonight,” Alex pleads with them, the tight angle of his eyebrows a bit undermined by the way he’s draped over Mitch’s significantly shorter frame.

“Cheers then,” Jev says, grimacing mostly for effect as he prises his hands away from Blake and Loïc, and takes a shot in hand.

The shots are overfilled, and a bit of the liquid spills over onto Jev’s hand, rapidly drying in sticky patches he soon forgets about in the midst of the company of his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: ok so mention of sex on drugs in the past, some mild discussions regarding the consent levels of said sex, and alcohol. Also! I did not change the rating for this because the sex is mentioned in very pg-13 terms.


	3. out of Nowhere)arranging a window into which people look

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yes, this is back; no i don't know for how long. no content warnings for this chapter, mild alcohol consumption.

Jev and Sam don’t really talk in the days following, although Sam does respond to the comment he leaves on a picture of Sam’s new cavapoo puppy on Instagram -- it’s captioned “He chewed a hole through my favorite shirt and still expects me to love him.”

Jean-Éric can’t help but type _I don’t remember you complaining when I tore up your UAL sweater_ thinking of when they had put together makeshift rags to soak in turpentine following the absolute mess of oil paints Sam had made drunk and angry and imprecise in his attempts to finish his senior thesis painting.

and finds himself staring overly-long at Sam’s reply: _you’re a lot more thorough in your apologies than the dog_

before replying again, and yes, OK, perhaps unwisely: _it helps that I have hands._

And listen, what Jev means by the comment is that he’d used his hands to carefully apportion the garment into square-cut rags, he used his hands to rub the oil paint splotches from the baseboards, from the walls, and eventually from Sam’s bruised knuckles -- he’d used his hands to slide his card through the reader at the bookstore to buy Sam another sweater, used his hands to carry home the damn thing in a plastic bag, used his hands to fend off Sam’s sore protests that he needn't have bought him another 40 pound piece of school merchandise. He doesn’t. Mean anything else by it. But colored by their last conversation, Jev re-reads the damn thing and regrets all six words, more so when Sam likes the god-forsaken thing.

He flushes a bright red seeing the notification pop up in his queue, and wants to bury his face in a pile of pillows despite being alone and in his own home. How he’s suddenly reverted to being entirely so teenage about this whole thing is a mystery to Jev -- but he thinks, at least in part, that it’s the way he’s sure André will see right through whatever framework of heteronormative “just old buddies” friendship he and Sam have carefully built around themselves within the first hour of shooting. And, unlike a reasonable person, Jev is dead certain André won’t leave it alone or tease, he’ll do his damned best to tear it down around them all.

“ _Putain d’idiot, toi_ ,” he says, entirely to himself in the silence of his own living room.

\--

Sam texts him to ask him to come up Tuesday or Wednesday, and he can see it annoys Blake a bit since they’ve all been putting in extra hours learning the second half of the dance and he’ll be missing the weekend, but he’s not a principal in this, and after bit of pleading, a bit of sweet-talking, and a promise to practice his bits while he’s away (that he does actually intend to keep, Alex’s skeptical glances be damned), she relents, and Jev goes ahead and books the train tickets.

Sam doesn’t live in Manchester proper, he lives fairly far east into Yorkshire in a place called Hebden Bridge which is actually painfully fancy and Jev often wonders how Sam manages it, his insistence that his partnership with the city council for an ongoing series of public murals not ringing _entirely_ true. Jev can take the train there, even if the one to Hebden leaves from Manchester Victoria, not Piccadilly, but Sam insists out of the gate that he’ll come collect Jev from Manchester and drive them both out there which appeals enough to Jev’s latent desire to have people take care of him and the guilty pleasure of being genuinely lazy that he can’t muster up any sort of socially appropriate protest that lasts longer than two sentences.

The train up north always goes faster than he expects it to -- the brick enclaves of London’s outer suburban communities giving way readily enough to thin canals with houseboats that seem half cobbled together with duct tape and rolling square pastures full of sheep and lazy-looking cows basking in the patches of sunlight that cut through the irrepressible chill in the air.

In an effort not to be grumpy, Jean-Éric tries to convince his body it wants to nap as the train rolls along, providing him with fitful and relatively ineffective bursts of sleep while curled an awkward angle against the cushion of his Moncler puff jacket hanging on the frame of the window. By the time he climbs out into the chillier and significant damper Mancunian air, he’s stiff from awkward posture with dried drool stuck in flakes to the edge of his beard and Sam, two coffees in hand, takes one look at him before handing him the crosswise cup with a raised eyebrow and the explanation:

“I know you prefer the froofy lattes and what have you, but I forwent my cuppa because Buddy kept me up all night and got a red-eye instead; honestly right now you look like you could use it more.”

“Is there any milk in this at all?” Jev all but whines, the smell of hot coffee softening his disposition almost immediately as he takes the proffered cup.

“No,” Sam says, curling a hand around his back and guiding him back over to the Costa of origin for the coffees. “But we can stop in so you can make it more tolerable to your liking, yeah? Car park’s that way anyway.”

A brief conference while Jev adds an irresponsible amount of sugar and cream to what was once Sam’s coffee establishes that they’ll leave Manchester immediately in consideration of traffic windows and properly catch up once they get closer to Hebden. Despite that, though, Sam pulls Jev close enough while he’s slumped over and cradling his beverage in both hands to run a hand up Jev’s neck and into his hair where after a brief ruffle, Sam switches to scratching to just behind his ears. Jean-Éric’s seen enough of Sam’s social media to know he’s being pet pretty much exactly like Sam pets his dog, but it feels too nice for him to call Sam out on it.

“I’m glad you agreed to come up,” Sam says after a few seconds, and sounds happy about it instead of just simply casual.

Jev lets himself just look at Sam until Sam is returning the glance, half smiling and curious.

“You didn’t have to wait for an excuse to call me, you know,” Jean-Éric says, smiling back as he says it, but arching an eyebrow and making sure there’s enough skepticism in his tone to let Sam know he does mean it to be reproachful, however softly.

Sam snorts and licks his lips, digging his teeth into his tongue even as his gaze flits forwards, and Jev knows enough to realize he’s trying very hard not to say something.

“What?” Jev needles, nudging Sam with his elbow when Sam shakes his head. “No, come on, what?”

“I was last to make the effort, not you,” Sam says after a second.

“What drinks, after graduating? That I turned down? I asked you out that weekend and you couldn’t because you were too keyed up about your thesis exhibition,” Jean-Éric says, the information surprisingly easy to recall after two years of not thinking about it in the slightest.

“No, idiot,” Sam says softly. “I asked you to my wedding.”

Jean-Éric doesn’t know what to say to that because it’s true, Sam had. And he just hadn’t responded; even if he’d only been given two weeks notice, it was bad form and Jev had known it at the time. It hadn’t even been planned out to be a large affair, just a few family friends on a hill at a country estate a bit further into Yorkshire, a good meal, and a night over. There had been a knot of feelings that had tangled itself up in Jev’s chest at the text, a knot that rendered him incapable of replying yes or no like a normal fucking person, and when he’d finally gotten over himself and been ready to send off a congratulations text, his fingers had been frozen by a notification on Instagram that Sam had posted that the wedding had been called off. Sam was obviously in a bad way, irate and devastated, but through all of it, not in the slightest bit vitriolic towards Holly. Jean-Éric had switched the text immediately to a _god I’m so sorry_ and had sent it, but understandably it had gone without reply.

Jev’s not going to argue that his text was technically the last time either man had contacted each other directly since because he knows enough about acceptable behavior to understand that would be him being unacceptably pedantic, but he wonders how much of what he’s recalling is crossing his face in a way that’s open for Sam to read since Sam’s gone back to idly playing with Jev’s hair.

“Come on and drink up, or else us leaving early will be for naught,” Sam says, after a few seconds and clearing his throat. “It’s almost four.”

\--

The drive over is relatively quiet and takes all in all two hours, traffic not entirely avoided. Jev sets the radio to a station he comes across playing pop hits from the sixties and Sam doesn’t argue it, content to just drive. Jean-Éric normally has a horrible time falling asleep in cars as some sort of a weird control anxiety, but does so almost immediately despite the coffee he’s imbibed which works well, since he wakes up with about a half hour to go startlingly awake.

He pulls Sam’s mood out of him in pieces, starting off with small talk about the people they both still keep in contact with, to his current projects, to where they’re likely to go eat once they arrive since:

“Under no circumstances am I cooking, I hope you realize,” Sam groans, coming to a stop again on the A646. “Not after this uphill battle. And besides, you don’t want me to, I haven’t really gotten any better at in the years we’ve been apart.”

“Lazy host is what you are,” Jev giggles.

“Fuck off,” Sam replies. “If you’re really dying for a cheese and pickle sandwich, I’m happy to make you one in the name of hospitality.”

It just makes Jev laugh harder even though Sam does look a little bit put out. “What is there to eat anyway? I’m not really in the mood for pub food if we can avoid it.”

“There’s other types,” Sam clarifies. “There’s a French place, two chippies, one steak place if high protein is still your thing, and a Japanese restaurant which isn’t half bad, oddly enough.”

“A Japanese restaurant in West Yorkshire?”

“Maybe not as highbrow as your city tastes require, but it’s acceptable,” Sam defends, which Jev tries not to smile at. “Not for sushi, but _yakiniku_ and _soba_ and the like.”

“Ok, sure. Why not?” Jev relents, watching Sam visibly relax. He hadn’t actually meant to wind up the other man but Jev guesses exhaustion from the drive got to Sam a bit more than he’d been willing to let on. “How bad’s parking going to be?”

“It’s actually not far from my place provided you didn’t pack a twenty-stone monkey into your overnight bag, so I’d thought I’d park in my night spot and we’d walk.”

Jev didn’t quite pack that much into the bag but it is a bit heavy, so he truly hopes Sam means it, and isn’t expecting him to walk ten kilometers or something absurd with the bag after dinner. He elects not to bring it up though, nodding his consent to the plan instead. It takes about ten more minutes before Sam takes a turn-off that leads them through lush hills and over a bridge and into what’s clearly a valley village -- low-slung houses clustered around a river housing canal boats. It’s as cute as Jean-Éric remembers it being from post-cards; he hasn’t actually been here before himself, the vague allure of visiting Sylvia Plath’s grave not quite enough to drag him up from London. There’s a large car park by the regional rail station, and Sam pulls into one of the spots marked for monthly pay. Jev grabs his luggage and the two of them head out across a lantern-lit stone pathway back across the river and into the village proper, Jev taking in the sights with a mental note to come back tomorrow or the day after when the sun is out to take some Insta-worthy pictures of the details that have fallen lush and darkly watercolor now that the sun is almost down.

The Japanese is entirely unassuming, a small two-floor affair with a lack of design flair that is so pedestrian, so normal, Jean-Éric almost doesn’t know what to do with himself. Sam just snatches two menus from an unattended _maître d'_ podium and waves a hand at the chefs behind the back bar, before calling “is upstairs alright?” and takes the thumbs up he receives in turn as tacit permission to begin the climb up to find seats themselves. Jev has to hurry to keep up with Sam’s pace, occasionally freezing at the unfamiliarity of it all.

“You alright?” Sam asks once they’re both seated by the big street-facing windows. They’re one of two occupied tables upstairs, the other group sat in the big booths by the back.

“Yeah,” Jev says after a second, thinking about it. “It’s just not much like London.”

“That was kind of the point,” Sam says, smiling wryly. “When I decided to move out here.”

“You hated London that much?”

“Not quite,” Sam clarifies. “Just wasn’t much good for my work, or my life -- at least when I left.”

And Jev imagines he means that he’d thought to set-up house with Holly and her son and have enough room for a dog, maybe another kid of their own. And while that’s all doable in London, it comes with a steep price tag, Jev knows.

“You think you might ever come back?” he asks Sam, not quite intending for it to sound as wistful as it winds up doing, and blushes lightly even as Sam nudges his knee.

“You miss me that much?”

“Not quite,” Jean-Éric parrots back, mostly to make a joke out of it, and startles when Sam kicks him under the table and giggles. “Ok, maybe a little, ow _fuck_ \-- if you kick me again, you’re paying for my drinks -- “

They’re interrupted by a waitress making her way over with enough noise to make sure the men aren’t surprised by her arrival without being terribly obvious about it which means Jev already quite likes her. They get a bottle of sake for the two of them, the restaurant shockingly not BYOB like Jev had feared, Sam ordering _okonomiyaki_ , and Jean-Éric opting for a small _nabe_ bowl with a side of _dashimaki tamago_ , the cool weather kicking-up a craving for soup.

They spend the time before the food arrives going over Sam’s murals -- not a total fabrication as it turns out, Sam handing his phone over for sharing while lovingly scrolling through panoramic shots of different ones he’s done by the tennis courts, one sprawling over the underside of a bridge, one delightfully abstract of different disembodies hands decorating the side of a social services building. Jev finds himself genuinely happy for Sam, the drink blossoming warmth in him anyway but the true pleasure the man is getting from proudly explaining and curating his works to Jev winning him over in a way that has nothing to do with the alcohol. He doesn’t have the words to say it yet, but Jev is glad that there was more here for him than just a failed attempt at a family. It doesn’t take till the dessert menu for Jean-Éric to be sure he’s glad he came.


End file.
